In the summer, it is good practice to share holiday photos on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. For example, someone like Yolanthe Cabau never misses a moment to treat her followers to photos and videos of her 6-year-old son Xess Xava, as also during their recent vacation in Africa. The daughter of Maxime Meiland has a public Instagram account with no less than 37,900 followers. That doesn’t stop Maxime from regularly posting pictures of Claire herself, as well as of her ten-month-old daughter Vivé. Of course there is nothing wrong with the expressed mother love of Yolanthe and Maxime who are very proud of their offspring, but there is also a downside. A seriously threatening one: attention from potentially ruthless pedosexuals!
Face shielding not enough
The police now even explicitly warn against this. ‘We want to make everyone aware that there are people who scour social media in search of such images,’ strategic police spokesman Robbert Salome tells Story. ‘It remains a decision of the people themselves. We don’t ban it. But be aware of it. It seems really nice to post pictures of your child in his or her bare bottom on the beach, but what they see is that people are running away with that imagery,’ says Robbert. Some celebrities such as Nicolette van Dam and her husband Bas Smit cover the faces of their children in photos and videos that are posted online, and Monique Westenberg, André Hazes’ ex-fiancée, for example, does that too. ‘But people looking for these images are not concerned with the head of a child, but with the body. It makes no sense in that regard to make your child’s face unrecognizable. Although you do ensure that the child is unrecognizable, but not to prevent the photo from being spread for other purposes.’
Warning celebrities
However, the police do not feel like approaching celebrities personally to express their concerns. “There’s no getting around it.” Hopefully this cover story in Story can help make celebrities more aware of it.
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Image: Peter Smulders
Read the whole story in Story. Edition 33 is now in stores or read the article via Magazine.nl
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